idiot oil pressure gauge freaks out

[Peroni]

This has happened occasionally over the past 2yrs but is becoming more frequent. My idiot oil pressure gauge will start going nuts flicking back and forth. I put a real gauge on the hpo reservoir and got anywhere between 25psi hot idle to 50psi at 2200rpm so no problems with oil supply. I replaced the sensor and cleaned the connector, it's still happening. It does this randomly but so far have only noticed it when the engine was hot. Its happened anywhere from slowly pulling away from a stop sign to passing traffic at 70mph. Electrical interference of some sorts? :shrug: I could hold the throttle steady and watch the gauge go crazy but give it a tad more or less and the gauge goes right back to normal. It's the weirdest thing!

 

[Denver]

It could be the sensor or the dash.

 

[Tom S]

Bad sender mine did that way back when under warranty.

 

[Peroni]

It could be the sensor or the dash.

Well I already replaced the sensor - one from a used parts motor and a brand new Motorcraft one with no results. Could be the gauge itself? It works fine most of the time, comes up to the same spot and never hunts around.

 

[Tom S]

I think you can get the gauge separately if needed. How good of a fit is the connector at the sender?

 

[Strokersace]

Mine does same thing only its when I'm loaded and higher rpm, like 2700+. I've had my current mods on 2 like trucks now with the same thing happening. Diff sensors, diff dashes, diff pcm's, diff engines. Only thing the same is the bolt on mods. Hoping its a tuning issue that will be resolved.

 

[Peroni]

How good of a fit is the connector at the sender?

I used a brass wire brush to brighten up the inside of the connector, gave it a slight squeeze with some pliers and it fits snug over the post.

Hoping its a tuning issue that will be resolved

Funny you should mention tuning. It didn't do this at all with TW or Swamps tuning and I haven't noticed it with Gearhead's either, only acts up (that I saw) with my BDP and PHP tunes. In fact I tried some updated BDP stuff Jonathan sent me and it exasperated the problem greatly. Went back to the old stuff and the gauge didn't freak out nearly as often. Not sure why???

 

[Strokersace]

On the 2nd truck and motor, I even installed a new melling lpop and made sure the front cover was in great shape between the mating surfaces. The 1st truck/motor this setup was on had s stock lpop. I also circumcised the bottom of the oil pickup tube too whereas the 1st one was stock.

The reason for the new lpop and modding the oil pickup was done because of a conversion I had with Cale. He said that those were 2 common things they'd do at the shop if they encountered the same prob. But I still have it.

Next step is tuning to see if it corrects it.

 

[Charles]

Your dash may not have a solid ground. My gauges act pretty dumb, and I've even had some burned out traces in my instrument cluster with various things trying to find ground in the dash.

My pyro bounces right along with the radio beat.


I have two superduties with body grounding deficiencies that produce similar problems.

A little time spent verifying or supplimenting the grounding might be helpful to at least rule it out if nothing else.